White Like Radiohead or Jesus, or How to Disappear in Plain Sight

That there

That’s not me

I go where I please

I walk through walls…

The lyrics are from and while I’m not the first essayist to wonder over the meaning of the song,[1] I am likely the first to apply their observations to race and class. I intend to write about Ferguson without writing about Ferguson, because there have already been tens of thousands of words[2] dedicated to that ongoing, revelatory moment in America’s racial biography.[3]

Instead, I’m more curious about how a group that should be a distinct and redemptive minority can disappear so completely into the whitebread hegemony such that they no longer shape discourse in a moral direction, but are instead shaped by political discourse from the Right or Left. (In fairness to the political Left, they tend to adhere more closely to a moral narrative, if morals are understood as systemic as opposed to just merely personal.)

You will have to forgive me for some broad generalities in this one. What I am about to say does not apply to all white Christians in the United States, but the problem is systemic as evidenced by a tweet from a Southern Baptist pastor here in Oklahoma from a moderately large church in response to the grand jury’s decision and the subsequent protests:

A man who uses force to steal what is not his is now honored by those who use force to steal what is not theirs. #justice #ferguson #irony

First things first: that’s not irony. The looters were not trying to “honor” Michael Brown. They were actually looting. They could have been a combination of criminals, angry citizens, anarchists, and opportunists, but they are clearly not the point. To focus only on the looting is to ignore the pleas of the peaceful protesters who were trying to do a couple things, including protest the death of yet another unarmed, young, black man at the hands of yet another police officer in circumstances that can at best be called troubling. Second, Michael Brown was not shot for stealing cigars. I’m weary of this story line. Even if he did steal cigars, or a television, or a bottle of booze, or medicine for a child, no one should get shot for stealing. That seems a reasonable axiom.

I don’t know if this pastor represents the mainstream of white American Christians. He only has 750 followers, but I have spent enough time online and watching television news to know that his views are not terribly unusual. In fact, he is committing the same sin as many of his peers; he is finding tangential narratives that allow him to ignore the larger narrative. In short, he is not speaking truth to power–the task of the pastor or prophet–rather, he is speaking propaganda to his followers to buttress the standard narrative of the conservative, white majority within American Christendom, and worse, within American political communities of reference.

The problem with being a white pastor and trying to address this issue within the authority of the pulpit is that he seems not to understand that he really does get to “go where he pleases” to the point where he “walks through walls.” I, too, am a 50ish white male. I get to go pretty much wherever I want. I can walk into any building in this city and no one will question my presence, barring federally-restricted, military, or penal facilities. This is part of the definition of white privilege–the ability to be above suspicion based on racial stereotypes, even extending into minority communities who would tend to give me a pass as well.

To be a white, male, middle-aged Christian in America is to hold one of the most invisible positions possible within our culture. Add a conservative political ideology to that demographic descriptor and the person is simultaneously a caricature and cliche while still maintaining his status as a real person with real influence. While I don’t dispute Oklahoma author Ralph Ellison’s metaphor of black males as invisible men, he means the metaphor differently than I, obviously. This is the beauty of a versatile metaphor. Ellison’s man would remain invisible until he was discovered to be someplace he did not belong. I would be hard pressed to find someone to tell me that I am where I don’t belong.

The cost of remaining invisible, from within the white narrative, is that I must either agree with the standard narrative, both cultural and political, or I must remain silent. Once my thoughts are known, I am forced to one of the available categories within the hegemony’s taxonomy of beliefs. For example, until students or acquaintances know that I am a skeptic, I am treated as part of the hegemony. As soon as I out myself as a skeptic, I am relegated to the category of “atheist,” which is the only category of non-theism with which my Okie neighbors are familiar. This does not change my racial privilege, but it does alter some of the other advantages, both professional and personal, I would enjoy were I to remain silent.

So we arrive at the metaphor of disappearing in plain sight, which is what the white church has largely managed to do in the U.S. They have agreed with the hegemonic narrative across so many different political and cultural divides that the word “evangelical” is now synonymous with political conservatism in the minds of all but a few casual observers of the nexus of religion and culture. The Tea Party, as has often been noted, is overwhelmingly Christian. More serious observers, myself included, know there is a difference, but moments like this test my commitment to maintaining the distinctions.

In assenting to the politically conservative narrative, they cease to be the church and become the hegemony. It’s transformation away from the Gospel and toward a gospel of racial superiority and political conservatism. The result is the transformation of the church into a racial and political organism with no ability to actually transform the parent culture. The Constantinian irony of conquest by conferring acceptance and subsequent preferential status is playing out yet again, and it’s doing so at the expense of the “Samaritans” in our midst.

[1] See “Everyday Apocalypse” by David Dark, a fantastic collection of essays.

[2] Some of the best writing has been by Ta-Nehisi Coates for “The Atlantic.” http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates/

[3] I had the bulk of this written before the Eric Garner murder, so I’m not addressing that here, except to note that it makes everything so much worse. It would be difficult to exceed Jon Stewart’s response to Garner. If you haven’t seen it, stop what you’re doing and watch it.